Cultural and Socioeconomical Dimensions of Human Reproduction and Sex Education in the Biology Textbooks of Eight Countries

This study was carried out within the European research project "Biology, Health and Environmental Education for Better Citizenship". It is a comparative analysis of textbooks from eight Mediterranean countries which differ by their cultures, their socio‐economical levels, and their religions. This work is focused on the sensitive educational topic "Human Reproduction and Sex Education". And 43 biology textbooks are analyzed among eight countries: four are in Europe and four in Africa and Middle East. Grids were built to identify implicit values in the texts and images. It is a more precisely explicit or implicit presence of cultural, socio‐economical, and ethical dimensions. The investigation concerns whether the authors of textbooks present differently this theme depending on the socio‐cultural, ethical, and religious contexts. The content of the textbooks was analyzed as reflecting the conceptions of their authors and publishers. The outcomes of the analyses show that several textbooks present images of human beings restricted to only one ethnic type, usually white‐skinned and with fair hair. The social, cultural, economical, and ethical dimensions were generally absent, except for some interest for them in few European textbooks.